


Temporal Refractions and Personal Reflections

by kapakoscheisigma



Category: Doctor Who (1963)
Genre: Arguements, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-22
Updated: 2011-12-22
Packaged: 2017-10-27 19:13:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,788
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/299131
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kapakoscheisigma/pseuds/kapakoscheisigma
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set the night after The Awakening, the Doctor and Turlough have an argument in Tegan’s uncle’s spare room.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Temporal Refractions and Personal Reflections

The Doctor and Turlough were snuggled together in the large, old oak double bed in the spare room of Professor Verney’s cottage in Little Hodcombe. Turlough was lying on his side, curled around the Doctor, looking over the Doctor’s shoulder into the dark night of the garden through the open curtains of the old, leaded windows. He spoke thoughtfully, distantly, despite the lack of physical distance between them; caught out like he didn’t want to admit to such feelings: “It’s like we’re one person. I don’t know where you end and I begin.”

The Doctor smiled, although Turlough couldn’t see his smile, lying as he was on his side, facing away from Turlough, with his back pressed against Turlough. “Sometimes it is like that,” he said absently. He had his eyes closed, watching the colours of Turlough’s mind.

Turlough was the teeniest bit annoyed at this rather dismissive reply, “No, no,” he snapped. “Not psychically, I meant physically! It’s like we’re one being. I don’t want us to separate.”

The Doctor was distracted, not really paying attention to his young lover, mulling over the preceding day’s temporal and psychic pressure that had been most uncomfortable. He replied carelessly, “That’s not really practical, is it, h’mm?”

This reply irritated Turlough. “Never mind,” he snapped. He fell silent, and continued his long stare out of the window into Verney’s garden and the quiet human street beyond. He thought about how he hated this place. He hated all of Earth, but the rural places most of all, which was crazy, as he loved the gardens of the palace at home, and the rides into the countryside as a boy. Some of Earth’s flora was not so different as Trion’s. He began a different tack, “Today I thought...”

The Doctor interrupted him with a sarcastic, nasty tone, “You always think that! You have a grudge against this planet because of one sick man, a couple of inadequate ones and a few lonely school boys lashing out!”

Turlough was stunned, the Doctor’s flip dismissal of all the bullying was one thing, but the evil bastard at Brendon who had abused him dismissed as merely, “Sick! Sick! That’s one way of putting it!” Angry, he shifted himself, sliding out of the Doctor and sitting up to hug his knees, staring at the wall. He began listing the times and locations he’d been beaten up, tortured, imprisoned and yes, even raped, by humans, by men, in his time travelling with the Doctor. It was a long list. He could list other times, other places, where he had confronted non humans and had experienced less brutality. “Do I need to go on?” he demanded archly.

“Why bring this up now?” the Doctor asked softly, sitting up. “Why do you insist on talking about it now? You were locked up today and you were fine afterwards. We’ve just made love and you were fine then. I refuge to feel guilty because – stop building walls Turlough! Don’t shut me out!”

Turlough snapped his head up and glared at the Doctor. “You can break them, can’t you? You can see everything if you want to, can’t you?”

“No Turlough, I wouldn’t rape your mind anymore than...”

“Anymore than you’d rape my body! Of course not!” Turlough laughed bitterly. “Easy for you to say, considering I know full well what you prefer. Easy to believe with such a comparison, of course it is, isn’t it? Except you are forever prying into peoples’ minds!”

“Not if I have to push, to force the issue!” the Doctor wailed. “They would know then.”

“You mean with pathetic humans!”

“I’m not discussing this Turlough. I thought you liked what we did, I thought you felt safe, I thought the memories no longer troubled you. You felt fine when we made love.” The Doctor was distressed, he was not good at this trauma business. He always found the best thing to do was bury it, forget it and never think of it again. Why did Turlough have to go over his time at Brendon and the whatever it was that got him exiled there like picking at a scab?

“Oh yeah, of course I was,” Turlough sneered. Who was the Doctor to criticize him for blocking his mind?

“You wanted... I know you wanted... I know....” the Doctor floundered. He shouted at Turlough, “Don’t shut me out! I won’t force my way into your mind! Don’t shut me out,” he repeated, close to tears.

Turlough sat up fully and stared down at the Doctor, now propped up on one elbow and shouted, “No! You disgust me! You sound so sweet when we talk about anything like this, but I know that deep down you want to go back in time and kill him, kill that ‘sick’ teacher who did this to me, prevent anything happening to me. Or maybe you want to watch him rape me so you can become angry enough to kill him with your bare hands!”

The Doctor put his hands over his ears, sitting up and turning his back to Turlough again. “I can’t,” he said.

“Oh no,” Turlough said sarcastically. “Time Lords don’t beat people to death.”

“Time Lords don’t break the Rules of Time. If I were to prevent you suffering you would never have been vulnerable enough for the Black Guardian to manipulate you and we would have never met. And Turlough, do you honestly think it was just you. If it were in my power, I would go back the day that man starting teaching at Brendon and have his tendencies revealed and him dismissed so he could never teach and no boy could be harmed.” The Doctor paused to calm his breathing. He hated contemplating this form of suffering and abuse. He took his hands from his ears to reach out to touch Turlough’s shoulder. Turlough flinched and glared hatefully. The Doctor returned the look with one of deep sadness. “Let me back in,” he said pathetically, reaching with his mind.

“No, your violent thoughts revolt me.”

“I can help.”

“By taking the pain away? No thank you, it’s my pain. And I don’t want to remember the violence, the attacks, the bullying, the rape, if I can’t feel the pain.” He paused, listening to the Doctor’s mind whilst still blocking his own mind. “And I don’t want chunks of my memory missing.”

“I won’t take anything away,” the Doctor was pleading now, “I love you. Let me in, I won’t force anything...”

Taunting, sneering, while raising his mental shields further, Turlough snapped, “Go on, see everything!”

“Only if you... Where are you going?” the Doctor whined as Turlough climbed out of bed and started to pull on his pyjamas.

“To get away from you! I don’t imagine it. Every time I’m on Earth or in human space I get attacked, beaten, tortured, imprisoned, or some attempts to rape me. Or maybe I do imagine it, apart from the imprisonment which appears to be an occupational hazard of travelling with you! But I do know that my first time on Earth I was bullied, belittled, beaten with canes and beaten up by boys and sexually abused by what you call ‘one sick man’ and I definitely didn’t imagine all that.” He stormed out of the bedroom.

 

 

Half an hour later Turlough returned, much calmer, bearing a tray laden with teapot, milk jug, sugar bowl, bone china tea cups and saucers and a plate of toast along with butter and raspberry jam. All the windows were open, with the Doctor practically hanging out of one of them. He had put on his own pyjamas.

Swallowing his pride Turlough said, “I’m sorry Doctor. I made some tea.” The Doctor was silent, not acknowledging his presence. “Shall I pour you a cup?”

There was more silence, and then, still without acknowledging he was there, a little out of tune humming.

“It’s cold Doctor. I’m cold if you’re not. Would you like some tea?” Turlough poured the Doctor a cup anyway, liberally sugaring it.

“Ghosts?” the Doctor said apropos nothing.

Turlough shrugged, “A little temporal refraction – harmless. No one knows and few can see each others’ time zones.”

“Temporal refraction, h’mm? Did I tell you about that? M’mm? Jamie?”

Turlough pulled the Doctor away from the window and guided him back to bed. “I’m Turlough, not Jamie. I’m not human,” he added, slightly irritated at being confused with a human.

The Doctor looked at him, puzzled. “Not Jamie?”

“Three regenerations ago. It’s me, Turlough. I made you some tea.” He handed the Doctor a cup.

“I saw ghosts.”

“Temporal refraction. I’m sorry, I really upset you, didn’t I? Your own mind is causing the reflection of the different times, breaking through the walls. You did it earlier today, remember, in the ruined church? Will? Everything will stabilize, especially if you drink you tea.”

“This has never happened before. Jam?”

Turlough buttered some toast for the Doctor before adding jam. “I can’t remember rowing like this outside the TARDIS, can you?”

Doctor was rocking now, backwards and forwards slightly but definitely rocking and hugging himself. “Someone I knew was once raped. Took him centuries, a couple of regenerations, to recover...” He grabbed Turlough’s arm and said suddenly, “You don’t have that long.”

Turlough smiled, “I’ll cope.” His smile vanished to be replaced by a look of panic as he took on board what he’d just been told. An imagine flashed into the front of his mind, transmitted unwittingly to the Doctor.

“Oh no!” the Doctor responded immediately. “Not him. Not like that... well, a long time ago, but not that, not what I meant...” The Doctor put down his tea and went to the window again. “So much bloodshed here, so much pain, centuries of bloodshed and pain. Everything was crowding in, such a psychic battle...”

“You won,” Turlough said patiently, lovingly. “Sit back down. Drink your tea.”

The Doctor did so. “M’mm. This is nice. What is it?”

“A South African blend. I found it in Professor Verney’s cupboard. You like it? Doctor? Yes? Shall we get some of this blend for the TARDIS?” Turlough smiled, he knew he was talking to the Doctor as if he were placating a difficult child. “I can ask Professor Verney.”

“I’m so tired,” the Doctor said, looking out of the window again. “I like the gardens, nearly as nice as the Cloisters.” He sounded drowsy now. “You know,” he yawned, “I really miss the gardens of my family...” He fell asleep, Turlough caught the tea cup, saucer and half eaten toast and they slipped from the Doctor’s fingers.

“Yes. I can see them,” he said softly to himself. “Gallifrey must be so beautiful.”


End file.
